Understand

I don't understand why I don't understand!

Some people have no problem in life. They get up. Go to work . Come home. Eat sleep. Get up next day and more of the same. They have little problem in life. They live and they die. They are like worker ants. Live for the benefit of the specious. My grandfather was like this. He was a good sort. Never harmed anyone. Lived his life to the end. He died at 93. Smoked all his life. Drank Guinness. Worked every day. He was a regular guy. Lived his life and died. He was a truly a nice person. Other people are different. There are plenty of shits in the world.

I'm not like my grandad. I have questions about life. I have a deep seated itch, that I cannot seem to scratch. I recall when I was a kid I was confused about many things. I remember looking at adults, the grown-ups and thinking, "when I get older, I'll understand". I remember looking at older members of the house we shared and thinking, when I get to 21, I'll understand. I will know. I'll understand. I was around the age of 10.

My 21st birthday came and went. My understanding life of increased a little but not much. There was still tons of stuff I didn't get. I still didn't get life. I didn't understand the inequities of life. I didn't understand the horrors of life. Why was there war? Why was there famine? Why was there disease. I didn't get it. There was a vacuum. I just didn't know.

There was religion (Christianity), philosophy (Schopenhauer, Kant), psychology (Freud, Jung), science (Einstein, Bohr). None provided the solution. There was still so much I didn't get.

It was like an itch I couldn't scratch.

Christianity offered a view of life. Belief in the after-life and faith in God, in his design. But, there's a problem. What if you get cancer? That's God design and you have to accept it without question. God screwed you. God wants you to die. You read the bible and its like "duh!" What is this stuff? Only this week I learned the Pope had brain cancer. You got that right. God's voice on earth is gonna die of brain cancer. Apparently its God's wish. How does that work?

How do you reconcile that with God's love?

Cos I can't. I have a problem with that notion. God's Earthly voice box is gonna die of a chronic disease? It does not add up. Unless God is having some kind of a joke on the Catholic Church.

Science provides some answers, but does not provide the answer I need. Science deals with external stuff. The "out there". Why does the Earth spin round the Sun and not the Sun spin round the Earth. Why do atoms cling together? What are atoms made of? What are quarks? Does string theory work? Is there an intelligible solution we can conceptually understand? These are not the questions that troubled me. I had little interest, though I did read alot.

Philosophy provided an intellectual approach to a problem. You think it through. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Thoughts do not provide a solution, they only produce more thoughts. You are immersed in the depths of thoughts, but no solution.

Psychology came close. Psychology observes the workings of the mind, whether its the conscious or the unconscious mind. I read Freud, Adler, Jung. (Along with a few others). I still didn't have it.

I read, dug, and studied, but still I didn't understand. There was much stuff I just didn't get. Maybe I was just plain dumb, and there was no way I was going to understand. It was just too deep. But at the back of it all, I still had the gnawing problem, I didn't understand life. I just didn't get it.

Here we are on this tiny planet, a mere speck. A dust particle in the vastness of space. Here on Earth, there was life. No other planet supported life. How come and why? Why go to all the trouble to build a Universe so vast, so incomprehensible so life could exist on a tiny dot in a remote backwater.

For some people, these things are not a problem. They live. They age. They die. Live life as best you can, when you can. Happy go lucky. But I was not like them. Don't get me wrong. I'm not depressed. I don't get depressed. (Which is strange. I guess I should, but I don't). There was this itch, that I could not scratch. Deep down buried deep within. No matter how hard I tried, I could not ignore it.

Why was life? What's it all about? This thing kept coming up. Friends would say "Forget it. Just enjoy life", but that nagging question was still there. I couldn't just forget it.

The Universe took 13.75 billion years to come into existence, just so you can have a great shopping experience.

Is that it? Is that what its all about?

Go shopping. Buy stuff. Get the "buzz". Max out that credit card/charge card.